By Mike McCoy, President, Carat UK
Global streaming platforms once made a virtue of the fact that a subscription meant viewers could avoid ads. Now they have pivoted; increasingly pushing audiences to mid-tier packages where ads form part of the fun. With Netflix, Paramount and Amazon pioneering new ways of putting ads on their platforms, will high-quality AV advertising enjoy a comeback?
We have been lucky enough to experience a golden age of TV over the last decade, but the same cannot necessarily be said about TV advertising. There has been a paucity in ads that hit home, that reflect and shape taste, that make you laugh or think.
Advertising, when done well, adds to the entertainment experience for viewers and creates a harmonious moment of synchronised focus and energy in which the advert stimulates a reaction, in the real world and in the feed. This has been the secret to so many brand successes over the decades, but it has been sadly in short supply in the last ten years.
You can rely on Christmas to spark the UK market back to life when it comes to audience pleasing ads, and the US still puts on a parade of great commercials for the Superbowl season, while Ramadan has evolved into that moment for many advertisers in Middle Eastern markets. Outside of these occasions, the level of creative investment (money and care) that drives engagement has been a rare occurrence.
The Power of Co-Viewing
More than 20 years ago, on 6 November 2005, audiences witnessed 250,000 multicoloured bouncy balls tumbling down Filbert Street in San Francisco to Jose Gonzalez soul trembler Heartbeats to promote Sony Bravia TVs with the promise of ‘colour like no other’. A few years later, Cadbury’s Gorilla enchanted UK TV audiences. Then, Channel 4’s Paralympics work burst onto our screens in 2012. All three examples dominated UK culture and conversation.
So much of our media is now solo consumption. People are locked away behind ear pods and their scroll focus, and you don’t get that moment of shared energy when something just hits right.
The rise of ads on streaming platforms offers an opportunity to use TV to brand-build in this way again. While data targeting and the capacity of AI to insert ads at the right moment can increase the appeal of using streaming platforms, it’s the power of shared viewing value that cannot be underestimated.
Co-viewing on streaming platforms delivers stronger outcomes than solitary viewing, particularly for brand growth and long-term impact. Ads viewed together benefit from higher cognitive engagement, helping to cut through clutter and embed themselves more deeply in our memory.
Emotion: not just for Christmas
The rise of streamer advertising could reignite brand building. This is an opportunity to return to advertising that provokes emotional responses all year round, not just at Christmas. Brands like Warburtons and British Airways already show a steadfast commitment to craft and its place in building emotional connections between audiences and brands.
Creating such high engagement commercials intended for co-viewing environments could provide the key that advertisers need to unlock streaming potential and build their brands long-term.
Planning for attention, not interruption
This is where the opportunity becomes interesting for advertisers. The return of the 30 second spot on streaming platforms should not be treated as a chance to bring old TV habits into new environments. It needs to be planned with much more care than that.
It’s no longer enough to just know who is watching. Understanding the context in which they’re watching is equally important. A family film on a Saturday night, a live sports stream, or a drama watched on the sofa with a partner are not the same moments. They do different emotional jobs, and advertising should reflect that.
That is why the role of a media agency is important. Better targeting alone will not make advertising more memorable. The real skill is knowing when a brand has permission to show up, what kind of attention it can realistically earn, and how creative can add something to the viewing experience rather than just sit around it.
A better kind of TV moment
The return of the 30 second spot should be about giving brands more room to build an idea, not simply filling another ad break. Used well, streaming could create space for work with more craft, more emotion and more staying power than a lot of the advertising audiences have become used to skipping past.
If streaming can combine the scale and shared viewing emotion of TV with better planning, and a stronger understanding of attention, it will do more than bring the 30 second spot back. It will reignite audiences’ excitement for ads and love for brands that do them well.
